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Vladivostok Air charter flight is due on Sunday
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Posted on Dec 23 2008
The first of three trial charter flights of Vladivostok Air will arrive on Saipan at 3:40pm this Sunday, according to the Marianas Visitors Authority.
The flight, which is reportedly fully booked, will be greeted by MVA officials, with the passengers expected to receive shell leis and children getting Saipan-da backpacks.
MVA said the flight will bring tourists from Khabarovsk to Vladivostok where they will add more passengers and then fly directly to the Francisco C. Ada-Saipan International Airport.
The flights will be operated with state-of-the-art Tupalov TU204-300, a 166-seat aircraft.
While this Sunday’s flight is fully booked, MVA said the mid-January 2009 charter is more than half full, and the third flight in late January also has a large number of bookings “by Russians wanting to come to the warm, tropical isles of the Marianas.”
Fiscal year-to-date numbers indicate that the Russian tourism market is up 86 percent from the same period a year ago—449 in October-November 2008 to 836 this fiscal year. Just last month, 456 visitors from the former Soviet Union arrived in the CNMI, compared to 261 in November 2007.
The CNMI, three hours travel from most cities in Japan, is served from Japan by Northwest Airlines. From Korea, Asiana Airlines provides daily direct flights from Seoul and four times a week from Busan.
Garapan Headstart held a Christmas program yesterday and was visited by “Santa Claus.” Photo above shows a scene from the children’s rendition of the “First Christmas.”
